The 1693 Sicily earthquake

Devastation that led to architectural rebirth

An engraving dated at 1696 is thought to depict ruined
buildings in Catania after the 1693 earthquake

A huge earthquake destroyed or severely damaged scores of towns and cities in Sicily on this day in 1693, killing more than 60,000 people.

Records say the tremor struck at around 9pm local time and lasted about four minutes.  It was mainly confined to the southeast corner of the island, with damage also reported in Calabria on the Italian mainland and even on Malta, 190km (118 miles) away.

Although it is an estimate rather than a verifiable figure, the earthquake has been given a recorded magnitude of 7.4, which makes it the most powerful in Italian history, although in terms of casualties it was eclipsed by the earthquake that destroyed much of Messina and Reggio Calabria in 1908, with perhaps up to 200,000 killed.

By another measure, the Mercalli intensity scale, it was awarded a score of XI, the maximum.  The Mercalli scale, devised in 1902, judges a quake’s severity by the intensity of shaking. The XI rating given to the 1693 event may well reflect accounts such as that offered by Vincentius Bonajutus, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, who wrote that "It was in this country impossible to keep upon our legs, or in one place on the dancing Earth; nay, those that lay along on the ground, were tossed from side to side, as if on a rolling billow."

The Palazzo Ducezia, designed by Vincenzo Sinatra, is one
of the Sicilian Baroque palaces in the rebuilt city of Noto

At least 70 towns and cities - including Catania, Syracuse (Siracusa), Noto and Acireale - were either very badly damaged or destroyed, with an area of 5,600 sq km (2,200 sq mi) affected.

Locally recorded counts of the dead indicate that there were probably more than 60,000 people killed. Around 12,000 of those - two thirds of the city’s population - were in Catania alone.

More damage and deaths occurred before the main earthquake in a powerful foreshock on January 9, itself with an estimated magnitude of 6.2, and as a result of tsunamis that devastated the coastal villages on the Ionian Sea and in the Straits of Messina.

The exact position of the epicentre remains unknown, although it was probably close to the coast, or slightly offshore, between Catania and Syracuse.  The tsunamis that followed affected some but not all coastal settlements. One place that did suffer was the port of Augusta, north of Syracuse, where the harbour was left drained when the sea receded, only to be swamped by waves of up to eight metres (26ft) high as the waters surged back.

Stefano Ittar's facade of the Basilica
della Collegiata in Catania

It may seem perverse to talk of good coming from such a catastrophic natural disaster that claimed so many lives, but it is an inescapable fact that had it not been for the 1693 earthquake, much of the wonderful architecture that makes the cities of southeast Sicily so attractive today might not exist.

That it does is thanks to the extravagantly wealthy aristocracy that controlled the purse strings on the island, which was then part of the Spanish empire.

After concentrating initially on restoring military defences around the strategically important Syracuse, Augusta, Catania and Acireale, the island’s government began drawing up of plans for the reconstruction of towns and cities.

Some, such as Catania, would be rebuilt to new plans on their existing sites, others such as Syracuse and Ragusa rebuilt following existing layouts, and others moved to new sites and built from scratch, as was the case with Noto and Avola.

In all cases, dozens of local architects were given palaces and churches to build.  Many had trained under the great Baroque architects in Rome and this was their opportunity, with money apparently no object, to recreate the sophisticated Baroque architecture that had become popular in mainland Italy, but had not really reached Sicily.

On such architect was Vincenzo Sinatra, a pupil of Rosario Gagliardi, who had been influenced by Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s work in Rome.  Sinatra was responsible for many of the new buildings in the new city of Noto, including the churches of Monte Vergine and San Giovanni Battista, the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore and its Loggiato, and the splendid Palazzo Ducezio (now the town hall).

Their work inspired more local architects to follow suit and between 1730 and 1780 the style that became known as Sicilian Baroque, characterised by typically Baroque curves and flourishes, but often with the addition of grinning masks or chubby cherubs, was at its peak, reflecting the flamboyance of the era.

Although the fashion for neoclassicism changed the thinking of architects on the island towards the end of the 18th century, it is Sicilian Baroque that gives Sicily much of its architectural character even today.

Other notable Sicilian Baroque architects include Andrea Giganti, Guarino Guarini, Stefano Ittar, Andrea Palma and Giovanni Battista Vaccarini.

The facade of the cathedral at Syracuse, which was
rebuilt by Andrea Palma in Baroque style

Travel tip:

As well as its Sicilian Baroque buildings, concentrated on the island of Ortygia, the historic centre linked to the modern city of Syracuse by the Ponte Umbertino, Syracuse is known for its ancient ruins. The Parco Archeologico Neapolis, situated within the city, comprises the Roman Amphitheater, the Teatro Greco and the Orecchio di Dionisio, a limestone cave shaped like a human ear. The Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi, meanwhile, exhibits terracotta artifacts, Roman portraits and Old Testament scenes carved into white marble.  Syracuse as a city is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

The city of Ragusa occupies a spectacular setting
on a rugged hillside in southeastern Sicily

Travel tip:

Ragusa, the principal city of the province of the same name, which also suffered much damage in the earthquake, is one of Sicily’s most picturesque cities. Set in same rugged landscape with a mix of medieval and Baroque architecture. The older part of the city, the spectacular Ragusa Ibla, is the town that was built on the site of the settlement destroyed in the quake, and is home to the grand Duomo di San Giorgio and the Giardino Ibleo, a public park with churches and fountains that offers stunning views.  Ragusa Ibla may seem familiar to viewers of the TV detective series Inspector Montalbano as the dramatic hillside city in the title sequence. The city streets also feature regular in location filming for the series, based on the books of Andrea Camilleri.



More reading:

How Giovanni Battista Vaccarini left his mark on Catania

The genius of Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Why the Messina earthquake of 1908 is the worst in Italian history

Also on this day:

1944: Mussolini has his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano, shot dead by a firing squad

1975: The birth of Matteo Renzi, Italy's youngest PM

1980: The birth of the Giannini sextuplets


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Salvatore Quasimodo - Nobel Prize winner

Civil engineer wrote poetry in his spare time

Salvatore Quasimodo is one of six Italians to win
the Nobel Prize in Literature

Salvatore Quasimodo, who was one of six Italians to have won a Nobel Prize in Literature, died on this day in 1968 in Naples.

The former civil engineer, who was working for the Italian government in Reggio Calabria when he published his first collection of poems and won the coveted and historic Nobel Prize in 1959, suffered a cerebral haemorrhage in Amalfi, in Campania, where he had gone to preside over a poetry prize.

He was taken by car to Naples but died in hospital a few hours later, at the age of 66.  He had suffered a heart attack previously during a visit to the Soviet Union.

The committee of the Swedish Academy, who meet to decide each year’s Nobel laureates, cited Quasimodo’s “lyrical poetics, which with ardent classicism expresses the tragic experiences of the life of our times".

The formative experiences that shaped his literary life began when he was a child when his father, a station master in Modica, the small city in the province of Ragusa in Sicily, where Salvatore was born in 1901, was transferred in January 1909 to Messina, at the tip of the island closest to the mainland, to supervise the reorganisation of train services in the wake of the devastating earthquake of December 1908.

Much of the city had been destroyed in the quake, as had Reggio Calabria, just across the Straits of Messina, and Quasimodo’s family lived in a freight wagon in an abandoned station. The physical devastation all around them had a profound effect on Salvatore, as did his daily contact with survivors in their struggle to come to terms with the destruction of their surroundings and the catastrophic loss of human lives, with perhaps as many as 120,000 killed in the areas worst hit.

Quasimodo worked as a civil engineer before
turning to writing full time

Quasimodo attended college in Palermo and, later, the rebuilt Messina, where he was able to publish his poetry for the first time in a journal he founded with a couple of fellow students.

He graduated in maths and physics and moved to Rome, hoping to continue his studies with a view to becoming an engineer.  But he had little money and had to abandon his studies in order to earn a living, taking a number of short-term jobs. In time he moved to Florence, where he got to know a number of poets and developed an interest in the hermetic movement, a form of poetry in which the sounds of the words are as important as their meaning.

Eventually in 1926 he handed a position with the Ministry of Public Works in Reggio Calabria, working with civil engineers as a surveyor.  He continued to write and to study Greek and Latin, making friends both in literary and political circles, including an anti-fascist group in the city. He also married for the first time. His published his first collection of poetry, called Acque e terre (Waters and Lands) in 1930.

He was transferred a number of times with his job, to Imperia, Genoa and Milan, before he quit to write full time from 1938.  In 1941 he was appointed professor of Italian literature at the "Giuseppe Verdi" Conservatory of Music in Milan, a position he held until his death.

After the Second World War, in which he was an outspoken critic of Mussolini but did not join the Italian resistance movement, his poetry shifted from the hermetic movement to a style that reflected his increasing engagement with social criticism.

The area of the Sicilian town of Modica in which
Salvatore Quasimodo was born in 1901

Among his best-known volumes were Giorno dopo giorno (Day After Day), La vita non è sogno (Life Is Not a Dream), Il falso e il vero verde (The False and True Green) and La terra impareggiabile (The Incomparable Land).

He won numerous prizes in addition to the Nobel Prize, in which he joined Giosuè Carducci (1906), Grazia Deledda (1926) and Luigi Pirandello (1934) as Italian winners of the Literature award. Eugenio Montale (1975) and Dario Fo (1997) followed him.

After his first wife had died in 1948, he was married for a second time to the film actress and dancer, Maria Cumani, with whom he had a tumultuous relationship that produced a son, Alessandro, before they were legally separated in 1960.

After his death in Naples, he was buried in the Monumental Cemetery in Milan in the Famedio - a place reserved for the tombs of famous people - alongside another great writer, novelist, poet and playwright, Alessando Manzoni.

Modica's spectacular cathedral of San Giorgio

Travel tip:

Built amid the dramatic landscape of the Monti Iblei, with its hills and deep valleys, the steep streets and stairways of the medieval centre combined with many examples of more recent Baroque architecture, including a spectacular cathedral, make UNESCO-listed Modica is one of southern Sicily's most atmospheric towns, with numerous things to see in its two parts, Modica Alta, the older, upper town, and Modica Bassa, which is the more modern but still historic lower town. Famous in Sicily for its chocolate, it has the reputation of a warm and welcoming city with an authentic Sicilian character.

Part of the dramatic cityscape of Ragusa

Travel tip:

Nearby Ragusa, the principal city of the province and just 15km (9 miles) from Modica, is arguably even more picturesque. Set in the same rugged landscape with a similar mix of medieval and Baroque architecture. again it has two parts - Ragusa Ibla, a town on top of a hill rebuilt on the site of the original settlement destroyed in a major earthquake in 1693, and Ragusa Superiore, which was built on flatter ground nearby in the wake of the earthquake.  A spectacular sight in its own right and affording wonderful views as well, Ragusa Ibla may seem familiar to viewers of the TV detective series Inspector Montalbano as the dramatic hillside city in the title sequence. The city streets also feature regular in location filming for the series, based on the books of Andrea Camilleri.

More reading:

Giosuè Carducci - Italy's first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Dario Fo - the outspoken genius whose work put spotlight on corruption

The playwright born in a village called Chaos

Also on this day:

1800: Napoleon defeats the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo

1837: The death of the poet and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi

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Luca Zingaretti - actor

Found fame as TV detective Inspector Montalbano

Luca Zingaretti: famous for his portrayal
of the Sicily detective Inspector Montalbano

The actor Luca Zingaretti, best known for his portrayal of Inspector Montalbano in the TV series based on Andrea Camilleri's crime novels, was born on this day in 1961 in Rome.

The Montalbano mysteries, now into a 10th series, began broadcasting on Italy's RAI network in 1999 and has become a hit in several countries outside Italy, including France, Spain, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Zingaretti has played the famously maverick Sicilian detective in all 28 feature-length episodes to date, each one based on a novel or short story collection by the Sicilian-born author Camilleri, now in his 92nd year but still writing.

Although he had established himself as a stage actor and had appeared in a number of films, it was the part of Montalbano that established Zingaretti's fame.

Yet he had hoped to become a star on another kind of stage as a professional footballer.  Growing up in the Magliana neighbourhood in the south-west of Rome, he spent as much time as he could out in the streets kicking a ball and played for a number of junior teams.

Zingarette in a scene from Inspector Montalbano

He was good enough, at 17, to earn a semi-professional contract with Rimini, then in Serie B, but a scholarship to the Silvio d'Amico Academy of Dramatic Arts persuaded him to return to Rome, abandoning his football career.

Before training to be an actor, Zingaretti had played
football at a semi-professional level in Rimini

On graduating, he began to work in the theatre, appearing in Chekhov's Three Sisters, Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan.  He did his first film work in 1987 and attracted critical acclaim for the first time in the director Marco Risi's movie The Wolfpack in 1994.

His profile was raised a little more when he played a Mafia boss in the popular TV series La Piovra in 1997 and it was soon afterwards that he learned of the plan to adapt Camilleri's Montalbano books for the small screen.

Zingaretti was intrigued because Camilleri had been one of his tutors at the Academy and he was familiar with the novels and their main character.  He auditioned and landed the part.

The exposure sent Zingaretti's career to another level, making him the most famous face on Italian TV and Italy's best paid actor.  Although he considers himself Roman in character, he immersed himself in the Montalbano role and earned Camilleri's respect for his authentic portrayal of a Sicilian, while the tough but caring detective, always rooting for the disadvantaged and exploited, won him a place in the affections of millions of viewers.

The city of Ragusa in southern Sicily, where much of the
location filming of Inspector Montalbano took place

In Zingaretti's opinion, the show, which is filmed on location in Sicily, is popular because Camilleri captures the lost charm of the island he knew as a child and because he created in Montalbano an old-fashioned character, dealing with the worst the crime world can throw at him, rejecting corruption and retaining a strict moral code.

Zingaretti's film career has continued in tandem, bringing him recognition among his peers.  He won two awards for Best Actor - a David di Donatello from the Academy of Italian Cinema and a Karlovy Vary Award from the film festival of the same name - for Alla luce del sole, a real-life drama directed by Roberto Faenza in which Zingaretti played Pino Puglisi, a Roman Catholic priest killed by the Mafia.

Married to the Naples-born actress Luisa Ranieri, whom he met on the set of the TV series Cefalonia, he became a father for the second time in 2015.  Their wedding took place in Sicily at the Castello di Donnafugata, near Ragusa.

His brother, Nicola, is a politician, a former MEP and a member of the Democratic Party of Italy.  He is currently president of the region of Lazio.

A beautiful, atmospheric picture that captures
 the dome of the Duomo di San Giorgio.

Travel tip:

Most of the Commissario Montalbano series is shot on location, mainly around the picturesque city of Ragusa, the historic centre of which perches on top of a hill called Monte Iblei. Rebuilt in Baroque style after the earthquake of 1693, it has charming narrow streets, pretty squares and some elegant buildings, including the 18th century Duomo di San Giorgio.

Travel tip:

The fictional town of Vigàta, where Montalbano is based in the Camilleri novels, is modelled on Porto Empedocle, a industrial port near Agrigento on the south coast of Sicily and Camilleri's home town.  Because of the association, the town changed its name to Porto Empedocle Vigàta, hoping to attract more visitors, although much of the exterior filming of buildings portrayed as being in Vigàta actually took place in Ragusa.  The police station where Montalbano works is the town hall in Scicli, another inland town a few kilometres south of Ragusa.

Also on this day: 

1869: Birth of Victor Emmanuel III, Italy's king through two World Wars

More reading:

Andrea Camilleri, nonagenarian creator of Inspector Montalbano

Umberto Eco - academic novelist hailed for The Name of the Rose

Franco Lucentini - one half of a crime-writing duo

Buy Andrea Camilleri novels from Amazon

(Photo of Duomo di San Giorgio by Gdiquattro via Wikimedia Commons)

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